Nerve Damage
by ThatClutzsarahh
Summary: Trying not to feel anything that's real means losing control. spoilers 3.08x3.09


Nerve Damage.

**set after 3.08 and a bit after 3.09. Peter and Olivia believe that if excusing themselves makes themselves feel better, nothing is wrong.**

**rated for sadness and angst and a mention of drinking.**

**no infringement intended.**

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His reason to stay is also his reason to go. If it makes any sense it anyone, they're one step ahead of he, already understanding reason that are far beyond his reach. He was not an abstract man and never was bothered with beauty in strange sculptures that looked like trash or theories that involved string and the universe. Well universes. Which is perhaps the reason he's wandering the dark Boston streets tonight. It's all because of universes, the right and wrong. But mostly it's his own fault.

He used to like the cold, which is partly the reason he stayed so long the first time around in Boston. But lately the cold has been freezing his body down to the marrow of his bones. Now instead of feeling numb, he feels tired, oh so very tired. It was exhaustion in his blood stream that left him nearly crippled at the counter of a bar with nothing but a bottle of vodka in front of him and a scowl on his handsome face. The bottom of the bottle was looking more and more inviting to him ever since _that_ happened, and now all he wants is to curl up and sleep everything away. He wants to go home.

But once you leave, nothing remains the same. You can't ever go home. That's the hard lesson Olivia's learned, since her return. Nothing will ever be the same since she left and came back. She keeps telling herself she's okay, but she's not. She isn't eating, she isn't sleeping and she certainly can't find a way to go back to work. But the worst part she can't find away to feel mad at Peter. But that's just how it goes, she guesses, and although it makes no sense at all, she has to live with the fact that he probably won't ever look at her again. So she'll look inside herself for the anger that he wants, but she doesn't have.

She's wasting away inside herself. On the outside there is a strength that holds out through the lengthy nights that she cant sleep and that holds her together in his presence but inside her there is a raging magnesium fire, burning so hot and devouring everything until there is nothing left. And the worst part Olivia fears, is that it will burn until there is nothing left to hold up that outer level and everyone will see her for what she has become-weak.

He watches but doesn't speak. He's too full of pride. It could have happened to anyone, he reasons with himself late at night when he over thinks everything. it could have been anyone just as easily as it could have been him. He has nothing to say sorry for in reality, because he had no honest idea there was anything wrong at all. He just chalks up his over thinking and guilt to exhaustion and rage because it's the only thing that makes sense in his logical mind. It's never been his fault, ever and why should it be now? What makes the blond haired agent so different from the suicide of his mother and the cheating of Tessa with Mike? It isn't, he reasons and yet that thought doesn't even comfort him into slumber.

It's because Olivia Dunham has wriggled her way underneath the tough flesh of his and nestled within his core, somewhere in his soul that he can't reach, no matter how hard he'd ever try. She had cut all nerves of reason and sewn them together using some string that she had buried within herself and then smiled up at him from inside, as if to say she was staying. Olivia Dunham had made a home within his brain, a place where he spills secrets and splutters truths, a place where opening the door for her or letting her go first doesn't seem chivalrous but feels right and normal. And because she seems right at home underneath his skin where he unconsciously likes her to remain, he's ripped her from her perch and set her out to be consume in his gaze of misplace flames.

Part of her wants him to book a flight out of Boston and leave. Just go. Maybe then she can find it inside her to be angry. But the more she thinks this plan through the more she realizes that it wasn't going to happen. Anger wasn't coming to her. Rage was, maybe, but it was rage for herself and the fire that consumed her rapidly as she cleared clean everything and started fresh. But somehow, even as she scrubbed her skin raw and cut her fingers nails down till they bled, she wouldn't feel the change she needed. After all, it occurs that home was never going to simply go back when everything was so different. What a lie that had been, how foolish it had been of her to believe herself, trick herself into thinking. Peter wasn't going to call, he wasn't going to come running. The reunion she had planned was stuff of a fantasy, a mark of a perfect world that'd never be hers.

This hand she's been dealt keeps she at bay. At least now she can burn alone in the comfort of her own personal drowning, where no eyes can watch. Drowning alone seemed more appealing than standing there next to Peter, as if nothing every happened. There are things in this world that she'll never understand and now she realizes that this was much better than knowing. He'll try to explain himself, maybe, but the damage is done, her nerves are gone, frayed into splits at the end. If she hears anything at all anymore, it won't be anything that matters. Influences from the outer world aren't going to matter. She gets some comfort in the thought that no one knew the other girl was missing. Her home's been wrecked too, but Olivia's not so sure if it's anything like the mess the other her has left behind.

And so, Peter's plane ticket to India will remain tucked away in his sock drawer, never expiring. He'll use it someday, sometime when his actions catch up to his brain and he feels guilty. But he won't feel that for a while, and so it'll remain in the sock drawer where it rests, tucked underneath a small photo of Olivia he'd taken a long time ago. That way, if he plans to leave, he'll take one thing with him, whether she knows it or not. He'll take her.

But for now, the damage is done.

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_reviews?_


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